The purpose of the Loch Sunart MPA is to facilitate the very differing management, monitoring and surveying requirements of conserving common skate. The common skate is the largest skate in the world. It was once found around the entire British coastline but unsustainable levels of fishing throughout the 19th and 20th centuries have reduced the […]

The Scottish Sea Angling Conservation Network (SSACN) is an independent Charity focusing on marine conservation issues, especially those affecting sea anglers. Our primary goal is to work in conjunction with others to help ensure future fish stocks.

We are passionate about the conservation of fish and their management for the benefit of all. We work in partnership with many other organisations, at national and local levels, to try and improve fish stocks for the benefit of all and to try and ensure there will be more and bigger fish for anglers to catch.

Shark stocks in Scottish waters are severely threatened and data on their quantity, size, sex, distribution and growth rates is needed if they are to be protected. The SSTP’s Special Events programme shows anglers can make a difference. Historically anecdotal evidence appeared to suggest several species of shark in Scottish waters required protection from excessive exploitation, […]

SSACN are very keen to help educate Scottish children about the various species of fish and their natural environments in their local waters.

We have been visiting primary schools throughout Scotland running education and awareness events. All of these have so far included classroom based session, educating the children about the sharks, skates and rays in Scottish waters, what makes them different from other fish in the sea and how they have well developed senses which allow them to be effective and impressive hunters.

SSACN’s Scottish Shark Tagging Programme (SSTP) was created to provide a specific focus on Scottish shark, skate and ray species and facilitate the collection of data to help determine the species life history (growth rates, maturation size) and population ecology (distribution, population number, migrations) of sharks, skates and rays in Scottish waters; additional objectives are […]

A new study, published in Marine Biology, has found Scotland’s first and only community-led protected marine reserve is helping boost scallop numbers off the Isle of Arran coast, . Scientists discovered a “much higher” abundance of commercially important juvenile scallops inside Lamlash Bay over three years. The size and reproductive capacity of adult scallops was […]

Whilst working on the database recently we came across an amazing new “days at liberty” record for a tope that had previously slipped our attention. Male Tope # 21161 was originally tagged in Luce Bay in June 2003 under the UK Shark Tagging Programme and was subsequently recaptured (also in Luce Bay) in October 2013. […]

Given the shared disbelief among many Scottish NGO’s about Marine Scotland’s proposed changes to the our Marine Protected Areas and Special Areas of Conservation, it is vital that we put pressure on the Government to answer important questions about their plans. Only recently the Governments own Environmental Committee suggested Scotland’s Draft Marine Plan was unacceptable. Convener Rob […]

The public consultation on statutory management measures for Inshore SACs and MPAs closes on the 2nd of February 2015. SSACN are recommending that only sustainable methods such as creeling, hand diving for scallops and angling should be allowed inside MPAs and that all active / towed gear (trawls, dredged and hydraulic methods) should be excluded […]

Scotland’s seas need your help – see the video. We need to tell the Scottish Government: DontTakeTheP out of MPAs. Our seas should be managed for public benefit – but they are in ecological decline. We have two choices. We can either stick with the status-quo by zoning off just a few, small patches of […]

America’s 11 million saltwater recreational anglers are to be given a voice on how their fisheries are managed. Scottish MSP’s and fisheries managers need to take note – you are stuck in the past, most other developed countries recognise the socio-economic benefits of sea angling, have a strategy in place for its development and directly […]

Most people are rightly outraged by the deception of Japan through their whaling for “scientific purposes”. But, according to Guardian journalist George Monbiot, the same trick – the mass slaughter of the creatures of the sea under the guise of “scientific research” – is now being deployed under our noses. Our own government, alongside the […]

A recent Government funded economic assessment for the management of the Scottish inshore fisheries estimated that there could be as much as a £1.3bn benefit for the Scottish economy over the next twenty years and a net gain of 1,490 new jobs for the economies of coastal communities. The Report identified that high impact fishing […]

Given the shared disbelief among many Scottish NGO’s about Marine Scotland’s proposed changes to the our Marine Protected Areas and Special Areas of Conservation, it is vital that we put pressure on the Government to answer important questions about their plans. Only recently the Governments own Environmental Committee suggested Scotland’s Draft Marine Plan was unacceptable. Convener Rob […]

Tuesday 2 February 2015 – North Eastern Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority (NEIFCA) implemented an emergency fisheries byelaw regulation prohibiting scallop dredging for a sixth month period throughout its district. Up until then, some 30 vessels were actively participating within the fishery with an equal number of applications and enquiries pending. Given the scale of […]

Tuesday 2 February 2015 – North Eastern Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority (NEIFCA) implemented an emergency fisheries byelaw regulation prohibiting scallop dredging for a sixth month period throughout its district. Up until then, some 30 vessels were actively participating within the fishery with an equal number of applications and enquiries pending. Given the scale of […]

Condensed from an article in the Daily Record With dwindling catches and wages, there are few people left in Scots fishing communities to go to sea which is why trawler owners have increasingly turned to foreign crews to keep the boats at sea. If these foreign workers do not come ashore, they are not subject […]

Illegal commercial fishing at the South Arran Marine Protected Area (MPA) has resulted in an urgent Marine Conservation Order (MCO) being brought in to protect a fragile underwater ecosystem off Arran. This is the first time such powers from the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 have been used. The Scottish government said the order would protect […]

Prime cod fishing grounds have been depleted or wiped out by overfishing and poor management. But in Arctic waters, Norway and Russia are working cooperatively to sustain a highly productive — and profitable — northern cod fishery where nothing is wasted skin, fins, bones, offal, or roe. Fresh tongues are sent straight to Oslo, whole […]

Once again sea angling has missed out on European money as more is funnelled into the commercial sector. £1.4 million of funding is heading to Inshore Fisheries Groups (IFG) for new research projects that will aim to secure a sustainable future for inshore commercial sector. The funding, which is delivered in partnership with the European […]

COMMISSION REGULATION (EU) 2015/111 of 26 January 2015 Establishing measures to alleviate a serious threat to the conservation of bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) stock in the Celtic Sea, Channel, Irish Sea and southern North Sea. Full text in 23 languages here. The final trawling ban area was extended to include ICES areas VIIj,k "to prevent displacement […]

The public consultation on statutory management measures for Inshore SACs and MPAs closes on the 2nd of February 2015. SSACN are recommending that only sustainable methods such as creeling, hand diving for scallops and angling should be allowed inside MPAs and that all active / towed gear (trawls, dredged and hydraulic methods) should be excluded […]

The Scottish Shark Tagging Programme (SSTP) has seen some amazing results during its 6 years off tagging sharks. Recently a common skate originally tagged, in an Irish tagging programme, in Ballycastle Bay Northern Ireland in March 2003, was recaptured twice by anglers fishing off the Scottish coast after having been at liberty for 4182 days […]

Scientists at Heriot-Watt University will use the kind of computing algorithms more commonly associated with Google search engines to uncover and record the complex relationships which exist across Scotland’s Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). A new study by the University will use computer models to map ocean currents and larvae movement around Scotland’s coast after which […]

Upcoming Events

Consultations

From Defra – https://consult.defra.gov.uk/marine/msfd-programme-of-measures Defra, the Northern Ireland executive, the Scottish government and the Welsh government are seeking views on the UK’s proposed programme of measures to maintain or achieve Good Environmental Status (GES) in their seas by 2020. The consultation covers programme of measures proposals for each of the 11 Marine Strategy Framework Directive […]

The Inshore Fisheries Management and Conservation Group (IFMAC) established a short-life working group to discuss the issue of hobby/unlicensed fishermen and report back with possible actions to reduce the incidence of unlicensed fishing. The working group identified a number of possible actions to reduce the incidence of unlicensed fishermen selling their catch for profit which […]

Scotland’s draft National Marine Plan is not fit for purpose according to the Scottish Government’s own Environment Committee. The Environment Committee said it is disappointed by the plan, stating that it has failed to provide a clear set of policies that can be applied across all of Scotland’s seas and was concerned as to how […]

A while ago the Scottish Government commissioned a Report to use cost benefit analysis and economic impact assessment to identify the potential benefits / costs of the effects of stopping dredging and trawling for prawns, lobsters and scallops from being carried out between 1 to 3 three miles from the shore. The recently released Report […]

Over 2 years ago SSACN, in line with the Scottish Government’s Marine Protected Area (MPA) process – we have now withdrawn from that process. Despite a Government paper in Dec 2012 stating that 2 Demonstration & Research MPA proposals, including SSACN’s were currently being assessed, in reality that was not the case, it was not […]

The Solway has been chosen as a case study by the Celtic Seas Partnership Project. The Marine Strategy Framework Directive requires countries to work together to manage the marine environment in a collaborative way if our seas are to be healthy and activities, sustainable and they need to be managed in a coordinated way that […]